The Mercy Hidden in My Jonah Season

When God's correction was not rejection, but a call back to obedience.

I knew what God was asking me to do, yet I kept coming up with my own version of the assignment, because it made me comfortable.

I didn't realize at first that it was just me being comfortable.

I put my own spin on my God-given assignment.

I started the consulting business because I was good at solving problems. It was disobedience, blanketed as comfort, as familiarity, as calling.

Instead of seeking the counsel of the Lord, I came up with what I perceived as his version of his calling on my life.

What I discovered is that my disobedience caused delays, pain, and suffering. What I screamed about as God being unfair, as God not helping, was his mercy showing up as a lack of progress in the perfect plan I had laid out. He didn't bless it. I even thought he had abandoned me. But he was still showing mercy.

I knew I had a desire to help others. I felt their burdens. I saw their pain. But my version of helping was not God's version of who to help, in the ways he had called me to help.

I had a Jonah season without knowing it. People usually jump to Job. They shout and give praise because God gave him double back.

But what about the Jonah seasons? When you run from your assignment and almost end up shipwrecked. When you are asleep while disaster rages around you, because you did not obey. When your disobedience almost becomes the cause of other people's destruction, because you brought them into your mess.

Some of us are stuck in a Jonah season while we dress it up as a Job season, waiting on God to give us double back. But he does not fund the version we built to stay comfortable. He funds what he assigns.

Don't jump on the bandwagon of a Job season when you are in a Jonah season, stuck in disobedience, running from your calling.

As for me, I have accepted that I was in my Jonah season. I ran from the assignment of God. I ran because it didn't make sense. I ran because, why would God choose me for this? I ran because of what people would think of me.

But we miss that a Jonah season has a miracle baked into it, the same as Job. The Bible says in Jonah 3:3-4 (KJV):

“Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey. And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey...”

All this time, we missed the miracle. A journey of three days became a day's journey, because the hand of God was on Jonah. What was supposed to take long did not, because he was finally walking in obedience.

And this is not the only time the hand of God bent what should have been impossible. Elijah, with the hand of the Lord on him, girded up his loins and outran Ahab's chariot all the way to Jezreel. A man on foot, faster than horses, because God said so.

“And the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; and he girded up his loins, and ran before Ahab...”  (1 Kings 18:46, KJV)

So hear me. When you accept your assignment and walk in obedience, the hand of God can compress what looked impossible. What should have taken ten years, five years, six months, can be cut down, because you are in alignment with the will of God.

Out of desperation, my soul cries out, and I say yes. Yes, Lord.

If you are in a Jonah season, return to the Lord in obedience, and watch how his hand moves mightily in your life.

I said it with love.

Stay in the rebuilding. See it through.

Camiel Khalilah